Adelaide

Adelaide is... nothing much. Mind you, I'm not saying it's bad, it's just... nothing much. There is not much to see or do, and the little there is is... nothing much.

The Adelaide Hills are nice to see and set foot on, I'll grant you that. You get a good view of the city from Mount Lofty, but then again, there's nothing much to see. The city is as flat as a city can be, lazily sprawling on a flat plain between the low hills and the calm sea. No recognizable landmarks, nothing flashy or particularly interesting.

Actually, I think of Adelaide as the most European of all Australian cities so far. Flat, squat, old-looking and with churches in it, even a recently-built old-looking cathedral. European-esque? Yes. Boring? Absolutely.

It does have beaches, for sure, Glenelg being the most touristic and trendy destination, and also being... nothing much. It's nice, but I've seen much nicer.

So, what is there to Adelaide that drags tourists there? Probably it's just "in the way". It's (very approximately) the midpoint of the journey from Sydney to Perth, and all Great Australian Rails stop there: the Indian Pacific (Sydney-Adelaide-Perth, got that one halfway), the Ghan (Adelaide-Alice Springs-Darwin, got that one too) and the Overland (Melbourne-Adelaide, missed this one). Then there's the wineries. The region is big on wines, wine-tasting and wine-drinking. That's not my cup of tea, or, as it were, wine, so I'll skip it. The other Big Thing: it's the main headquarters for those attacking Kangaroo Island. KI is supposed to be an island paradise of hopping wildlife, unspoilt nature... and farms.

I haven't been there myself, for a host of reasons, mainly to do with money and fire. Money is self-explanatory: all tours are a rip-off. The other one means the island was burning while I was there. This would have normally made me more enthusiastic to go, but in this case it meant half the island was closed, including both of the main National Parks. So the main thing to do in Adelaide, I didn't do. However, for what I gathered from others who did go, it's... nothing much either.

What else? Victor Harbor. Didn't go, looked like the typical tourist trap, and it was expensive. Next: Hahndorf, the "German village" in the hills. Sure. The only things German about that tiny town are the name and the throngs of German tourists walking the streets. There are a few other things travel agencies try to sell you as touristic, but they're... nothing much either.

What I did do and enjoyed was going to the Botanical Gardens (every city in OZ seems to have them), cycling through the city in good company (bike rental is free, and the parks are very bikeable), visiting the Aboriginal Exhibition at the SA Museum, buying really cheap food at the Central Market, eating for next to nothing at the Food Plaza in Chinatown and having lots and lots of beers with some amazing guys.

In a nutshell, the best thing to do in Adelaide is to get into one of the nice pubs in the center and ingest unreasonable amounts of Cooper's* in the company of the great people that your fellow travellers are.

* Cooper's=the local beer of Adelaide. To my taste, the best beer in Australia, and probably ever.

This said, I did take many nice pics during my stay. Here go a few:

Wildlife

Though not that wild, actually. Cleland Wildlife Park is a place I can't cease to recommend to everyone I meet. You can of course see echidnas, wombats, wallabies, emus, snakes, lizards and tons of birds in lots of other places.

But few are your occasions of feeding and petting kangaroos and koalas. Let me introduce you to my new friends:

Skippy the kangaroo

and Collie the koala!

I wanted to cuddle a wombat* too, but apparently they don’t appreciate it and bite. I didn’t try it with the emus* either, and nor did anybody else. They have a way of looking mean, mad and dangerous up close, without actually doing anything to account for it. I think it’s those big bright eyes and the mocking smile. And the mechanical, robotic way they walk. I can’t help thinking of an AT-AT Walker from Star Wars driven by The Joker.

But actually, the only really wild and potentially dangerous creature I saw was a kangaroo just outside the fence, that started growling and showing me its teeth as soon as I approached. I gather he had come because of the scent of the females inside, and he was quite angry because he couldn’t pass the fence. When I first approached the park, I was impressed by the security measures. Barbed wire, electrified fences, double fence lines in some places. It looked rather like a concentration camp or Jurassic Park. I thought, boy, there’s no way I’m getting in there for free. I was ready to spend $13 on the admission fee, but then, whaddya know, the rear door was open. Turns out those fences are more for keeping inmates in and other animals out.

But back to our stray ’roo. From behind the fence, I amused myself watching the poor enraged bastard. He hissed and he growled, and made aggressive gestures, which was really funny to watch. That is, funny from behind an electrified barrier. Now I have the proof of the roos’ famous bad temper.

*wombat = a marsupial halfway between a pig and a mole

*emu = a mean-looking ostrich